Example research essay topics, free essays

You are welcome to search the collection of free essays and term papers. Thousands of essay topics are available. Order unique, original custom papers from our essay writing service.

Sample essay topic, essay writing: Religion And God - 1118 words

Essay you see on this page is a free essay, available to anyone. We strongly do not recommend using any direct quotes from these essays for credit - you will most probably be caught for copying/pasting off the Internet, as it is very easy to trace where the essay has been taken from by a plagiarism detection program. You are welcome to use these samples for your research, but if you want to be sure that your essay is 100% original and one of a kind, we highly recommend to order a custom essay from us.

The existence of God has been a question since the
idea of God was conceived Descartes tries to prove
God's existence, and to show that there is without
a doubt something external to ones own existence.
He is looking for a definite certainty, a
foundation for which he can base all of his
beliefs and know that they are true. Descartes'
overall project is to find a definite certainty on
which he can base all his knowledge and
beliefs.Descartes attacks the principles that
support everything he believes with his Method of
Doubt. The Method of Doubt is Descartes' method of
fundamental questioning in which he doubts
everything that there is the slightest reason to
doubt. Think about it like this. Almost everything
you believe to be true comes from the senses or
through the senses.

However, the senses are
sometimes deceptive. Since the senses are not
completely trustworthy, it is irrational to place
complete trust in them. However, it is no small
leap of faith to presume that everything our
senses tell us is false. In fact, it seems almost
absurd to say such a thing. Nevertheless, as
Descartes points out, we have dreams regularly and
in these dreams, everything we experience is a
figment of our imagination, or at least not real
in the physical sense.

So, it is reasonable to
doubt everything our senses tell us, for the time
being. Now, using similar logic, we can say that
everything we have learned from physics,
astronomy, medicine, and other such fields are all
doubtful. Descartes even believed we could say
that such simple, logical statements as 2+3 = 5 or
a square has 4 sides could be conceived to be
false. 'Since I judge that others sometimes make
mistakes in matters that they believe they know
most perfectly, may I not, in like fashion, be
deceived every time I add two and three or count
the sides of a square..' We are now at the point
where we are doubting everything - the world
around us, that we have a body, and anything else
that we could possibly believe.Perhaps I even
doubt that I exist myself. In doing this, I am in
the act of doubting.

How can I doubt something if
I do not exist? Similarly, maybe I am deceived
into thinking I do not exist by some other entity.
Then I must exist for it is I who is being
deceived. This is the basic premise of Descartes'
famous 'Cogito Ergo Sum' - 'I think therefore I
am.' Here Descartes is not saying anything about
what we are here, just that we are. Next, his goal
is to find out exactly what he is. Well, Descartes
states, if I exist, for how long do I exist? I
exist for as long as I think, and if I cease to
think, then I shall also cease to exist.
Therefore, I am nothing but a thinking thing -
that is, a thing that 'doubts, understands,
affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also
imagines and senses.' Although saying he is all of
these things is indeed a bold statement. Descartes
feels that in his attempt to prove that he exists
he has done all of those things, therefore they
must be a part of what he is.Decartes goes on to
prove the existence of God.

He begins this by
stating that nothing can be created from nothing,
and that the less perfect can not create something
more perfect or better than itself. He explains
that he knows he is not perfect because he doubts,
and knowing is more perfect than doubting. From
that he determines that within him lies this idea
of a perfect being, and that he is incapable of
coming to such an idea by himself. If there is an
idea in our minds that we didn't create, something
else created it. He saw nothing in nature that
would qualify as superior in the sense that he had
stated, so he determined that the only other
logical answer was that God placed it in him,
therefore, God exists.

Berkeley would argue that
Descartes is wasting his time by trying to
discover what must be absolutely true in the real
world. In his Dialogue, Berkeley argues that there
is no real world, and that all sensible objects,
those which can be immediately perceived, exist
only in the mind. He starts by proving that
secondary or external qualities exist only in the
mind by use of the Relativity of Perception
Argument. As an example, Berkeley writes that if
you make one of your hands hot and the other cold,
and put them into a vessel of water, the water
will seem cold to one hand and warm to the other.
Since the water can not be warm and cold at the
same time, it must follow that heat, a secondary
quality, must only exist in the mind. Berkeley
also uses the qualities of taste, sound, and color
as examples to prove that all secondary qualities
must reside in the mind.However, Berkeley also
says the same argument can be applied to primary
or 'intrinsic' qualities.

He writes that his own
foot might seem a considerable dimension, but to
smaller creatures, that same foot might seem very
large. Since an object can not be different sizes
at the same time, it follows that extension must
exist only in the mind. Further, since all other
primary characteristics can not be separated from
extension, they too must exist only in the mind.
As for what I believe about this argument, I don't
totally believe it. It makes perfect logical sense
the way that he obtains many of the arguments, and
while they are all built on a foundation that is
strong for Descartes, himself, I do not always
share the foundations that he believes in. The way
that he explains it is not the only possible
conclusion and it seems like he is limiting
himself in his search for truth in that he does
not explore the fact that maybe there is no
perfect being.

Just because we are not perfect
certainly does not mean that there is true
perfection somewhere and the idea of perfection
that we have is more or less a fuzzy one and
because of the fact that it is different for
everyone, there might not be a true absolute
definition of what it really is. While Descartes'
proof is very interesting in how he goes about
deriving truths by exploring some of the options
that might be the truth, I do have a hard time
accepting some of the conclusions that he states
as truths. So this means that God does exist.
Thank you.

Research paper and essay writing, free essay topics, sample works Religion And God